I finally got a 50 pound bag of bromated All Trumps from the East Coast, because I am interested in doing some testing on my own. I want to see with my own eyes the effects this flour will have on my NY style pizzas and ultimately with my cracker crusts. And in fact, this week I should receive a product called King Kaiser, which I am told is All Trumps with ascorbic acid added...and then I can test all three.

But, for the first experiment I made two batches of dough, one with unbleached All Trumps and the other with bromated All Trumps. Everything was identical in the two batches except the flour:

The first two doughs in the experiment were in the fridge 24 hours, and then were taken out to warm up for 2 hours. You can see from the picture below, that one of the doughs is noticably larger...that one is the bromated one.

I stretched out both doughs, dressed them and baked them in my deck at work (565 degrees tonight). They both took 5 minutes to bake, both browned nicely, and both were delicious. Oven spring was greater in the bromated crust, and the bromated crust was more tender, not as chewy as the unbleached pie. The winner of the first test is clearly the bromated pie.The first 3 pictures are the bromated crusts and the last 3 are the unbleached crusts.John

I also used part of the bag to sheet out cracker crusts. The bromated dough is a lot different, it seems drier, and stronger, and I noticed I had to adjust my sheeter to roll thinner than normal to get the right thickness factor. The pizza below is 33 hours old. It has good oven spring, but the bottom isn't quite what I'm looking for...we'll see what a bit more age does to these doughs.John

aah... same findings as me. non bromated all trumps is pretty much just like kasl. I actually have better luck with harvest king, which is not bromated. It matches the bromated all trumps a little better in tenderness. Im interested to hear how the dough with ascorbic acid turns out. In my tests it still was not nearly as nice as the bromated crusts I made.

I don't know if you saw the PMQ Think Tank thread on the All Trumps bromated versus unbromated issue at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?p=78733#p78733 but Tom Lehmann weighs in on that topic in that thread. I thought somewhere that I had read that Tom indicated that a bromated flour didn't require as long a mix as the unbromated version. However I could not find any post where he said that. But, in the same thread, the member AFS, who made a switch from the bromated All Trumps to the unbromated version said that he had to increase the mix time. Also, scott123 indicated that a bromated high-gluten flour does not need as much knead time as an unbromated high-gluten flour, at Reply 1032 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9908.msg162683/topicseen.html#msg162683. If all of this is true, then a truer test of the two versions of the All Trumps flour might call for a shorter knead time for the bromated All Trumps than for the unbromated All Trumps.

My findings showed that its not true. general mills told me to do the same thing and it doesn't help at all. Maybe john will test and find out that im an arse. Mixing the non bromated all trumps longer just made it even more chewy for me.

I don't know if you saw the PMQ Think Tank thread on the All Trumps bromated versus unbromated issue at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?p=78733#p78733 but Tom Lehmann weighs in on that topic in that thread. I thought somewhere that I had read that Tom indicated that a bromated flour didn't require as long a mix as the unbromated version. However I could not find any post where he said that. But, in the same thread, the member AFS, who made a switch from the bromated All Trumps to the unbromated version said that he had to increase the mix time. Also, scott123 indicated that a bromated high-gluten flour does not need as much knead time as an unbromated high-gluten flour, at Reply 1032 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9908.msg162683/topicseen.html#msg162683. If all of this is true, then a truer test of the two versions of the All Trumps flour might call for a shorter knead time for the bromated All Trumps than for the unbromated All Trumps.

Thanks for the info Peter...don't believe I had read that until now. I have read all that scott has written on the bromated flours, and am going to eventually experiment with shorter mix times, but I had to start somewhere, so I started exactly where my dough process is right now.

Norma, maybe one day on our birthday we will meet and share a pizza..what do ya think?

Tonight I had round 2 of bromated dough experiments after work. The following 2 doughs were 50 hours old, and were taken out to warm up two hours prior to bake. Again, you can see, that the bromated dough is much larger than the other one. Each of these was baked in a hotter oven tonight (580 degrees), they each amazingly took just a hair over 4 minutes to bake. They both browned very nicely, especially the bottoms...again I notice that the bromated dough has more oven spring....both are delicious and tender. Although the crusts are again completely golden brown they are not what I would consider crisp, they are foldable (if that is a word)John

But, now for the pizza of the night. This is a cracker crust I rolled 56 hours ago. I baked it in a 540 degree oven. Pictures can't come close to describing this pizza. Member Essen once described the perfect pizza as having an egg shell bottom, with pillows of softness above that...(it was something like that!!). Well believe it or not, you can obtain this texture with a cracker crust also, and the one below is one of them. You can see the difference in the bottom shot alone...you can see the tiny little blisters all along the bottom..and these equal tenderness. By the way, we don't dock our doughs JD. I don't attribute this to bromated flour though, as I have had many, many of these over the years...with just normal everyday flour.....but maybe I could achieve them even more often...who knows?John

Interesting day today. Last two doughballs......64 hours old......but these I reballed because I thought they needed some energy. I reballed them 12 hours prior to bake and took them out to warm up 3 hours prior to bake. Again you can see, the bromated dough is larger. The bromated dough was much, much stronger than the other one and was tougher to stretch out. But, the bromated dough has much more oven spring, and I think made a beautiful pizza. But as for the tasting....the reball raises both doughs many notches in my books... both crusts were crisp, and light, and of course extremely flavorful given the time they've fermented. Could not pick a best pizza today for taste, but by appearance I'd say bromated dough hand's down. I'd be proud to serve either of these pies.John

My experiment with my cracker dough was another huge success as far as quality goes. I baked a skin rolled 72 hours ago, and it was fantastic. I am amazed the quality is holding on so long, maybe this goes to the Dough Doctor's remarks about bromated flours for doughs held 3 days or more. I'll find out more tomorrow.John

Excellent work as always John. Could you please put up a crumb shot of this experimental cracker. Also, did you laminate/bookfold this or just shoot it straight on through your sheeter? Baked right after sheeting? Thanks.

Excellent work as always John. Could you please put up a crumb shot of this experimental cracker. Also, did you laminate/bookfold this or just shoot it straight on through your sheeter? Baked right after sheeting? Thanks.

Bob,Our workflow is as follows:Mix the doughLet the dough rise (about 80 to 90 minutes)Sheet the dough (we laminate ours) and cut out skinsStack the skins and refrigerate

The following cracker was rolled on Friday, so this is 96 hours old. Under normal circumstances it would be hard to get a skin this old to form a crust, and in most cases the oven tender would be constantly trying to find a hot spot in is oven to get some color. But, not this one.....this is another fantastic crust. And if you look very carefully at the crumb shot you will see the tiniest of pinholes which were created during the lamination process. I can't believe I even mean it, but maybe tomorrows pizza will be as good?The crumb shot is not of the pepperoni, green pepper and onion pizza, but of another experimental one we had tonight.John

Scott, This is nothing but absolute fun for me...unfortunately, my allergies are just killing me right now...that's right flour kills me! But, the bromate issue brings up many more questions for me, perhaps I can answer some with some more experiments. As I told you, I am awaiting the bleached, ascorbic acid added stuff and then I'll try some more fun things for experiments. It's unfortunate that one cannot learn with so few experiments. My God, sometimes it takes a week or two of mulitiple tens of bags to figure what is going on with my my dough. Anyway, I'm sure I'll have alot to bounce off you after the next couple weeks.

Bob,Our workflow is as follows:Mix the doughLet the dough rise (about 80 to 90 minutes)Sheet the dough (we laminate ours) and cut out skinsStack the skins and refrigerate

The following cracker was rolled on Friday, so this is 96 hours old. Under normal circumstances it would be hard to get a skin this old to form a crust, and in most cases the oven tender would be constantly trying to find a hot spot in is oven to get some color. But, not this one.....this is another fantastic crust. And if you look very carefully at the crumb shot you will see the tiniest of pinholes which were created during the lamination process. I can't believe I even mean it, but maybe tomorrows pizza will be as good?The crumb shot is not of the pepperoni, green pepper and onion pizza, but of another experimental one we had tonight.John

John,

Thanks so much for your reply. I have been following you for some time and am real happy to have just read your last post to Scott indicating that you are inspired enough with these current experimentations to say that you two will have much to bounce back an forth in the coming weeks. Look forward to that! I am in planning mode to go forward with something commercial soon myself and I like the way you think.

Appreciate the crumb shot you posted as per my request and that pie looks great, also displays your characteristic lamination in the rim. Not trying to be a stickler here but I am very interested in the crumb of the pie you posted in the following pic that I will post up here at my closing. John, if your journey with this current topic leads you to be able to replicate this particular pie(which I'd bet money will happen) please put up a crumb shot of this when it is found again...thank you sir!

Here's a 5 day old laminated cracker crust made from bromated All Trumps. It is simply unbelievable, that an excellent quality and textured crust could possibly last this long.....this is an all star pizza!

Made two more batches of NY style doughs, one with unbleached All Trumps the other with bleached and bromated All Trumps. Made both batches exactly the same using the same ingredients as the first experiment, but changed up on the mixing. Each of the doughs is mixed exactly 3 minutes....it is then bagged and left to bulk ferment in the fridge. The following doughs were baked at the 42 hour mark. They each were balled and scaled at the 29 hour mark, and were taken out to warm up 3 hours prior to bake. Again the bromated dough is a lot larger than its counterpart, it is also a ton stronger and takes much more energy to open up. The bromated dough also exhibits a lot more oven spring. Because these doughs were balled about 11 hours prior to bake, they are nice and crisp, with the unbromated one being the crispier. Both pizzas delicious, with excellent texture. Although my ovens are a little cooler right now (535) the pizzas cooked in right at 5 minutes. The first set of pictures is the bromated one.